Knap

Your vault on Knap, on every device you use. The whole vault, on desktop and on phone, with real-time collaborative editing on all of it.

The plugin keeps your notes as plain markdown in your vault. Knap holds a CRDT copy, so two people can edit the same note without a merge conflict and a device that was offline catches up when it reconnects.

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What it does

• The whole vault, and nothing to pick. Sign in, choose which cloud vault this one belongs to, and everything syncs. Making a folder makes it everywhere, moving it moves it everywhere, deleting it deletes it everywhere, the way any other sync behaves.
• Two people, one note. Edits merge as you type. No conflict copies, no last-writer-wins.
• Offline is normal. Edit on a plane, reconnect, and Knap catches up.
• Attachments travel with the notes. Images and PDFs sync alongside the markdown.
• Phone included. isDesktopOnly is false, sign-in comes back over an obsidian:// link rather than a local port, so iOS and Android work the same way the laptop does.

This is the Obsidian half of Knap, where the same vault is reachable by an AI assistant over MCP. You do not need to use that half: sign in, and the plugin syncs.

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Install

The plugin is not in the community catalog yet. Two ways to install it today.

BRAT

BRAT installs plugins straight from GitHub and keeps them updated.

1. Install and enable BRAT from Settings → Community plugins → Browse
2. Settings → BRAT → Add beta plugin
3. Paste pantalytics/knap-obsidian, pick the latest version, Add plugin
4. Enable Pantalytics Knap in Settings → Community plugins

BRAT's updates replace main.js, manifest.json and styles.css and leave the rest of the plugin's folder alone, so an update keeps you signed in, keeps the cloud vault linked and does not sync the vault over again. The status word goes back to Initializing only when the update lands before the first sync has finished, because that pass really is unfinished.

Manual

1. Download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release
2. Put all three in <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/synced-vaults/
3. Reload Obsidian and enable Pantalytics Knap

Coming from an older version

The plugin was called Knap Sync up to 1.4.0 and Synced Vaults from 1.5.0 to 1.7.0. The name is Knap from 1.8.0, and Pantalytics Knap since Obsidian's directory refused the bare word. Only the name changed each time: the identifier stays synced-vaults, so the plugin updates in place and there is nothing to delete and nothing to sign in to again. The product is still Knap, and every screen inside the plugin still says so.

Coming from Knap Sync is the upgrade that does cost something, because Obsidian keys a plugin by its identifier and that one did change. Delete .obsidian/plugins/knap-sync/ once the new one is enabled, or two copies will sync the same vault against each other. On BRAT, remove the beta plugin first and add pantalytics/knap-obsidian again.

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Sign in

Settings → Pantalytics Knap → Sign in. A browser opens, you sign in with your Knap account, and Obsidian picks it up from there. There is no address to type and no code to paste, on a laptop or on a phone.

That button is the only way in. There is nothing else to try and nothing behind it to choose.

Then Cloud vault → Choose, and pick which cloud vault this one belongs to. One local vault is linked to one cloud vault, and linking replaces rather than adds, so a vault is never syncing with two places at once.

After that the whole vault syncs, and there is nothing else to pick: a vault is what syncs. To keep part of your notes off the cloud, keep them in a second vault.

Unlink stops the syncing and deletes nothing, on either side. Sign out ends this device's access and hands the credential back, so a laptop you pass on is not a way in forever.

The plugin talks to Knap and nothing else, so there is no address to configure. If you want to run your own, EVC Team Relay is the plugin for it, and this one is a fork of it.

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What it costs

The plugin is free and MIT licensed. Nothing to buy in it, and no licence key to enter. What a Knap account costs is a question for Knap, not for the plugin.

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Network use

A Knap account is required. The plugin is a client, and with nothing to sign in to there is nothing for it to sync against.

It talks to Knap, and to an identity provider only while you are signing in through one.

Connection	Protocol	What for	When
Knap	HTTPS	Trading the sign-in code for this device's credential, and handing it back at sign-out	Signing in and out
Knap	HTTPS	Which cloud vaults your account can open, and how large a file the server takes	Opening the picker, and starting a link
Knap	HTTPS	Attachment bytes, up and down	When an image or a PDF appears, changes or is opened on another device
Knap	WSS	The document sync itself: the vault's file tree, and one connection per note in play	While the vault is linked
Your browser	HTTPS	The sign-in page, at Knap and then at whichever identity provider Knap uses	Only while you are signing in
obsidian:// callback	Obsidian URL scheme	Receiving the sign-in handoff	During sign-in only

The identity provider row is worth being precise about. The plugin never contacts an identity provider at all, and it holds no client id and no secret for one. It opens a page at Knap in your browser, and what comes back through the obsidian:// link is a one-time handoff code rather than a credential, because a deep-link URL survives in browser history. The credential itself is fetched over TLS, once.

No telemetry. The plugin does not phone home, count anything, or send your notes anywhere except to Knap.

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Where this comes from

This plugin is a fork of EVC Team Relay, which is itself derived from Relay by No Instructions, LLC. Both are MIT licensed and both copyright lines are carried in LICENSE, with the full attribution in NOTICE.

The fork exists for two things upstream does not do: vault-wide scope as a first class option, and a sign-in that survives an identity provider matching redirect URIs exactly, which is why the callback arrives over obsidian:// instead of a loopback port. Upstream serves anybody running their own server, which this fork no longer does: it talks to Knap and nothing else.

The syncing itself is no longer upstream's either. Since August 2026 the sign-in, the link, the file tree and both directions of every edit are ours, in src/knap/, against a server we wrote. What is left of the fork is compiled in and does not run. docs/architecture.md says which is which.

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Development

npm install
npm run dev      # watch build
npm run build    # production build
npm run lint
npm test

CONTRIBUTING.md has the rest, including how to load a development build into a vault.

Before changing anything, docs/architecture.md: the plugin carries two layers, only one of them ships, and knowing which file belongs to which is the thing most likely to send a change to the wrong place. docs/ui-ux.md is the screen and the words, and docs/README.md indexes both.

Support

• Report a bug
• Request a feature

License

MIT. Copyright (c) 2024 No Instructions, LLC, (c) 2024-2026 Entire VC, (c) 2026 Pantalytics. See LICENSE and NOTICE.